3DS piracy could lead to less dev support

Do you enjoy playing your Nintendo 3DS? If so, you may want to encourage people to stop illegally pirating software for Nintendo's handheld system. In response to Tiny Cartidge's report that hackers are starting to make progress in breaking into the 3DS, award-winning independent developer Jools Watsham threatened to stop developing games for the 3DS.

In a post on his personal blog, the co-founder and game director of Renegade Kid explained, "piracy on the Nintendo DS crippled the DS retail market, especially in Europe." Watsham fears that same thing could happen with the 3DS if piracy gets bad enough.

"If piracy gets bad on the 3DS, we will have no choice but to stop supporting the platform with new games," he warned. "Some say that piracy leads to more game sales, claiming that it enables players to try before they buy. Bullshit. The percentage of people who will spend money on a game that they already got for free is surely very small – especially with so many “free” games already in the market. The line between what should/should not be free is getting very blurry."

Watsham noted his past game Dementium II as a victim of piracy.

"We’ll never know how/if Dementium II landed in as many hands as the first game, Dementium: The Ward, due to the rampant piracy at the time," he explained. "Dementium: The Ward sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide, which is a great success for an original mature-rated title on the DS. Recorded sales of Dementium II are less than half that. We’ll never truly know why that was so, but many seem to believe that piracy had a lot to do with it."

Watsham suggested that hackers who really want to mess with the 3DS should become legit developers for it. "Many of today’s great programmers used to be hackers back in the day. It is a great way to learn the craft. Putting ones efforts towards the creation of legit games instead of potentially crippling the market seems like a much more fulfilling path."

Well, there you have it. If you want to continue enjoying your 3DS and new games for it you might not want to piss off the developers. Believe it or not, these guys create games to make a living. Stealing potential profits from them make it extremely difficult.

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Matt Liebl
You can follow Editor-in-Chief Matt Liebl on Twitter @Matt_GZ. He likes games, sports, musicals, and his adorable dog, Wrigley, and his wife.